Category: Teaching

Events Management Higher Education: Current issues in the U.K.

I recently gave a keynote presentation at the 2nd International Planning and Creativity Competition, in Hangzhou, China.

In my presentation, I highlighted three issues affecting the development of higher education for events in the UK:

  • Articulating the value of a degree in events management, as opposed to ‘just’ having industry experience or completing work-based training.
  • How to effectively teach about creativity and technology, when most events degrees are taught in business schools.
  • The questions of whether we we helping to develop and enhance the ‘profession’ of events management, or just creating individual professionals.

This event brings together academics, industry figures and students from across China for presentations, workshops and and an event planning competition for undergraduate students. Last year, I was able to speak at the event in person, and a group of our students from the University of Greenwich took part in the competition. Hopefully, we will be back next year. You can view my presentation below:

CHME 2019 – Transforming Hospitality

 

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CHME 2019 – Transforming Hospitality

21 May – 24 May 2019

University of Greenwich, London

Register now at www.gre.ac.uk/CHME19

The University of Greenwich are delighted to be hosting the 28th annual conference of the Council for Hospitality Management and Education – ‘Transforming Hospitality’ which has a focus on how hospitality enables us to understand the complex social and cultural structures and practices within which it operates. New multidisciplinary enquiries are redefining what hospitality is with a view to contributing to what hospitality is becoming – a tool that allows us to critically appraise the changes that are taking place in the world around us.

This conference aims to showcase insightful and influential research and help to set future research agendas within critical hospitality studies, hospitality management, health, and urban hospitality. To share the best practice in scholarship and pedagogy, this conference will also provide opportunities for those academics and industry professionals wishing to contribute to enhancing the value of pedagogic research.

Full details of the conference, including the call for papers, can be found at: www.gre.ac.uk/CHME19

Conference Tracks
Track 1: Hospitality Management
Track 2: Critical and Cultural Studies of Hospitality
Track 3: Learning, Teaching and Assessment in Hospitality Management Education
Track 4: Urban Hospitality
Track 5: Hospitality and Wellness

Attendance Fees:
Early Bird Fee: £440 Non-members, £340 Members, £210 Student

Full Conference Fee: £480 Non-members, £380 Members, £250 Student

One Day Fee: £200

Gala Dinner for your guests: £110

 

Register now at www.gre.ac.uk/CHME19

Tourism Minister visits Greenwich

The Minister for Tourism, the Rt Hon David Evennett MP, visited our campus at the University of Greenwich, to find out about our Tourism degrees.

The Minister spent time with students from the university’s Tourism Management degree courses as they discussed their studies, business ideas and career plans.

He said: “The future of the tourist industry is something very close to my heart, and without question its success depends upon recruiting talented people who are looking to make their mark in their careers. Greenwich’s students have shown me just how creative and enthusiastic they are.

tourism minister visit

“It is wonderful to meet young people with such a passion for their subject, and a privilege to listen to the ideas of such a highly enterprising group. It strikes me they could not have been studying for careers in this industry at a more ideal place than the University of Greenwich, and I look forward to them taking their ideas and skills out into the wider world.”

Educating the 21st Century Events Management Graduate

My colleague Charles Bladen and I have just had this paper published in the journal ‘Events Management’.  In the paper, we are argue that Events Management degrees need re-examining, to ensure that they are helping students to develop the kinds of skills and attitudes that employers, and society need.  You can read the abstract below and, if you’d like to read our paper but you don’t have access, please get in touch.

event-management1

“This article discusses whether event management can yet be classified as a bona fide profession, how staff working in the industry can be effectively professionalized, and how professional university education programs can be better designed to achieve this end. The article discusses the findings and limitations of some of the existing literature concerning professionalism within event management, and whether event management can yet be wholly described as “a profession” according to conventional definitions. The event management profession and event management education are discussed in terms of improving pedagogy in relation to the requirements of event industry practice. Finally the work concludes that the challenges of educating future event professionals require a rethink of events education so as to develop more reflective practice.”

Further Education and Local Economic Development

This is a presentation that I gave last week at the annual Teaching and Learning Conference at Thanet College in Kent, UK.

In my talk, I explored some of the language currently being used by the Government and by OFSTED when they make links between further education and local economic development.  As with much current policy rhetoric in the UK, there are a number of ambiguities in the Government’s views about the future role of FE in local economies and I picked out a couple of these as a way of encouraging the College to think about how it could start to set its own agenda for achieving an ‘excellent’ OFSTED assessment.  In particular, I noted how the culture-led regeneration of Margate and the new Enterprise Zone for East Kent show that the future of local skills development will be in the knowledge economy, meaning that across all areas of the curriculum, teaching and learning should be developing students’ creativity, collaborative skills and flexibility.

I spent half the day at Thanet College and it was a great insight into the current state of Further Education – I learnt a lot from some brief conversations with colleagues there and heard about some fantastic work that is being done.  In particular, it was exciting to hear about how a shift to a student-led, creative curriculum in one subject area had dramatically improved student retention and achievement.

 

Events Management: an introduction

Our new book, ‘Events Management: an introduction’ will be published by Routledge on 22nd February 2012.  You can view more information about it here, and pre-order it from Amazon.

“Contemporary events management is a diverse and challenging field. This major new introductory textbook is the first to fully explore the multi-disciplinary nature of events management and to provide the student with all the practical skills and professional knowledge they need to succeed in the events industry.

The book covers every type of event studied on an events management course, including areas as diverse as sports, music, the arts, corporate events, tourism, and the public and voluntary sectors. It introduces all the key issues facing the contemporary events industry, from health, safety and risk management to sustainability to developing a market-oriented business, with every topic brought to life through vivid case-studies, personal biographies and examples of best practice from the real world of events management.

Written by a team of authors with many years experience working in the events industry, the book introduces the practical skills required in every core functional area of events management, such as marketing, finance, project management, strategy, operations, event design and human resources. A companion website for the book includes a dazzling array of additional teaching and learning features, from self-test questions, audio interviews with key industry figures and additional case-studies to Powerpoint slides and an instructors’ guide. Events Management: An Introduction is the essential course text for any events management program”

 

Tourism Management at the University of Greenwich

This is a new promotional film that has just been released for our BA Tourism Management degree at University of Greenwich.  I’m the programme leader for the degree and I’m in the video, along with three of our current students.

Methodspace

I have just found a website called Methodspace which claims to be ” the home of the Research Methods community from across the world”, a browse through is very interesting, if you’re into research methods like me….

The site is published by Sage and so I’m sure it will have a pro-sage text bias lurking in there somewhere, but the content appears to be mainly user-generated, with lots of forums and commentary.  If you are carrying out a research project then you should be able to use this site to get feedback on your research design and discuss research issues with like-minded individuals.

The reports of the conference at the LSE last month on social science research and public policy are up on the site, you can view them by clicking here.

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Stop the presses…

We are mid-way through the process of launching a new MA in International Tourism Management.  I have been writing courses for the programme on ‘research methods’ and also ‘tourism in emerging economies’.  The programme hasn’t been finally validated yet, although we expect to meet our first cohort of students in October this year.  Nick Jackson wrote a piece in the Independent last week about Master’s degree’s in tourism and we were very happy to get a mention:

“Universities are increasingly conscious of the need for tourism and hospitality management postgrads to be fully business literate. When Greenwich University developed its new MA in international tourism management, set to start in September, they consulted an advisory group of business collaborators, including the Association of British Travel Agents, the World Travel and Tourism Council, Visit Britain, and tourism businesses. “